How yoga supports my relationship with my inner child
This summer I was privileged and grateful to take some time off as I left the corporate world and made space for creating my own business and changing career paths… (a story for another time)
I leaned into my inner child, allowed my intuition and “how I felt” that day to dictate my daily endeavors. My options usually were creating, exploring, gardening, organizing or nourishing, and absolutely nothing to do with my new business or sitting behind a computer screen. My aversion to being behind a screen for those initial months was real!
There were days that I felt “lazy” or “unmotivated” because I wasn’t working on my business and instead spent days outside creating in our garden. During these times I would practice my yoga and reach for the tools. I would make space for the feelings, allow them to come up and bring in Satya or Truth, and ask myself, “is this statement true”? I would acknowledge that society tells us that we have to work to be “productive” and that this gardening endeavor was bringing me peace and beauty in our back yard and it was “productive” in another way. There were days I found myself over doing it in the garden as I had an idea about how much I could get done in a certain time, my desire to prove productivity coming up again. Over time I was able to listen to my body and build in time to rest, switch projects, practice some yoga nidra or stretch and relieve my body of the physical labor.
In the corporate world I spent time expanding my knowledge and consumed self help books, yoga philosophy and educational books while studying to be a Yoga Therapist. The last time I read fantasy books was in college and I realized I had not allowed myself to read for true pleasure in a long time. But boy did that change! I got into the most popular fantasy book series out there and could not stop! My restraint on these audio books went down the drain for those first few months, I was hooked, line and sinker! To the point I was impressed at the amount of audiobooks I could go through in a week.
The practice of Brahmacharya or Moderation is something that I find comes up whenever I explore or re-connect with activities that bring me joy. I tend to over do it and over indulge and am left sad or disappointed when it’s all over so quickly! Over time I have been working to balance my days and build a rough outline and a couple of top goals I hope to achieve each day. Inviting some ability to check in with myself and see what goes with the flow, while still practicing balance and achieving my goals.
What's the lesson here? I am still trying to figure it out myself, but reconnecting with my inner child has been supported by living through the 8 limbed yoga path. Right now that looks like focusing on balance, connecting with myself and openness to self reflection to experience true joy.